


If You Don't Know How to Swim, Don't Be A Lifeguard

by sweetNsimple



Category: Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death Fix, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Temporary Character Death, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 02:56:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19142155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetNsimple/pseuds/sweetNsimple
Summary: “Do I look like I’m fit to lead a team in a fight against bioterrorism?  Seriously, look at me.  Don’t look in the past at someone you remember – I’m not that guy.  Maybe I was, maybe I can be again, but, right now?  I’m a mess.”  It was brutal honesty.Piers and the rest of Alpha Team were making a colossal mistake and he didn’t want to be responsible for when they all died.~:~Chris Redfield should never have been made team leader.  He knew that from the start.  The road to recovery was long and involved unforeseen aid from a face he had thought lost beneath the waves.





	If You Don't Know How to Swim, Don't Be A Lifeguard

Chris remembered looking Piers in the eye and telling the marksman that he was a fucking prick. 

Piers had looked offended for all of two seconds before getting serious again and shrugging.  “If I have to be.  You’re coming back with us to the frontline, one way or another – where we belong.”

“That’s what makes you a fucking prick,” Chris had said in a haze of lost memories, mind torn between something half-remembered and an extremely strong thirst for something – anything – alcoholic.  Withdrawals were fucking pricks too.  “Do I _look_ like I’m fit to lead a team in a fight against bioterrorism?  Seriously, look at me.  Don’t look in the past at someone you remember – I’m not that guy.  Maybe I was, maybe I can be again, but, right now?  I’m a fucking mess.”  It was brutal honesty.  At the time, his throat had been painfully dry and his head had been throbbing mercilessly.  His attitude had been as sour as he remembered his stomach feeling. 

Piers and the rest of Alpha Team were making a colossal mistake and he didn’t want to be responsible for when they all fucking died.  They called him Captain, but he couldn’t even recall becoming one.  There were snatches of images, of voices, of something that _might have been_.  But, overall?  He was blank on the past, damn set on breaking his three-day abstinence from alcohol to get filthy drunk, and angry at this man who seemed to think he knew Chris better than he did. 

News flash – the kid had no fucking idea.  Maybe he _had_ known Chris, in some distant time when Chris wasn’t in fucking pieces and burnt out, running from reality straight down a bottle of vodka.  Now?  Who the fuck knew who Chris was.

It occurred to Chris, distantly, that he was using the word ‘fuck’ a lot in his head.

Fuck it, he thought, and took a bitter swig from his canteen.  Of _water_.  Fuck Piers too.  Fuck the rest of the guys who he was trying not to get to know, who kept side-eyeing him like they could see the truth where Piers couldn’t.  Chris wasn’t fit for duty, no matter what the marksman thought. 

Piers looked him right in the eye, not flinching from the violent monster Chris felt had taken safe haven in his mind and chest.  “You think I can’t see that?”  Piers growled.  “You think I don’t know that you can’t fight your way out of a bottle right now, much less lead a full team in and out of China?  Fuck you, _Captain_ , I can see it clear as day.  Part of my job is being able to see things that other people don’t.  Here’s the thing – I wanted you back.  I…”  He paused then, looked to the side and down before snapping back to Chris.  He leaned forward, getting uncomfortably close in the moving train’s private room.  Their knees were almost touching.  “I _needed_ you back.  Chris.  You don’t remember anything, do you?”

Chris was the one to look away this time.  “Not much,” he admitted after an uncomfortably long silence.  This whole thing was uncomfortable.  Chris wondered if this train served alcohol.  He wondered if he could slip away long enough to even enjoy it if they did. 

“Chris…”  Piers was perched on the edge of his booth now.  His breath was hot and – and – kind of like cinnamon?  Cinnamon gum, maybe?  - “You don’t know this right now, but I love you.”

While Chris was left reeling from this shocking announcement – what kind of love?  Brotherly?  Was Chris like a dad to this guy?  How old was Piers?  How old was _Chris_?  Christ, he felt old, there was no way Piers meant it like _that_ – Piers hooked his thumb on the chain hanging around his neck and pulled it out.  There was a ring on it.  Nothing special about it, really – just a gold band. 

It felt achingly familiar and Chris was smoothing his fingertips over the body-warm surface before he could stop himself.  There was a – feeling, image, sound, _smell_? – that invaded him, cozy and homey, like being in bed. 

Piers was almost smiling, even as Chris snatched his hand away and tried to push himself further into his own booth, _tried_ to make space so that they were not so close anymore.  Piers just shifted to keep Chris pinned between the booth and the small window in their matchbox-sized apartment. 

“I wasn’t planning on reminding you.  I thought it would be easier for you not to know, but I think now it might be better if you did.”  Chris belatedly realized he was shaking his head and stopped.  His chest felt tight.  He was breathing hard and fast and it still didn’t feel like he was getting enough air. 

“What the Hell –” he began, but couldn’t finish. 

Was he _gay_?  He hadn’t been at all interested in sex while he had drunk his way from one bar to another.  Having someone else touch him at all had left his skin crawling, made him feel heavy and rotting on the inside.  Some siren in his head kept going off, screaming that it was _wrong_ when prostitutes fawned over him.  Even when he had been hit on by another man, he had wanted to make a break for it.

Was he _married_?  That had to be what the ring meant, right?

“You proposed to me last year,” Piers told him.  He brought Chris’s hand up to his chest and held it there, beneath the weird camouflage net-scarf the marksman wore.  “Breathe with me.  Count out loud.”

This was fucking weird.

But Chris listened, maybe because he was so fucking lost in his own head that he needed someone to help pull him out.  Piers’ heart was right below his palm, he realized, and he felt it beat as Piers’ chest expanded and deflated, up and down, up and down…

He was at twenty-seven breaths when he realized that he wasn’t having a panic attack anymore.  He went to thirty breaths anyway, because it felt wrong to stop sooner. 

“You don’t have those often,” Piers mused.

“Maybe I _didn’t_ have those often,” Chris grumbled hoarsely, strung out and exhausted.  “They’re common.”  If he went a day without a panic attack, it was probably because he was too drunk to remember having a panic attack, or passed out having night terrors instead.  “I don’t even know why I’m freaking out half the time anymore.”

Piers…  Piers just looked so serious, like Chris was saying something of utmost importance.  “You’re a disaster, Captain.”

“We’re engaged, but you still call me Captain?”

“That’s the part you have a problem with?”

Chris shrugged.  “It’s true.”

“Look,” Piers said with an almost-sigh.  “The reason why I told you we’re engaged is because you need to know this – I’m angry – _pissed_ – not just at the world, but at you for disappearing on me after we lost the rest of our team.  You think I didn’t want to disappear too and forget everything?  I fucking needed you, but you weren’t there.”

“I’m sorry,” Chris felt obligated to say.  “I didn’t choose to forget.”

“You don’t want to remember,” Piers stated.  Not a question.

Chris looked away, ashamed.

“So I’m angry,” Piers said again.  “And I want to make this right – I want to fulfill BSAA’s cause – to fight bioterrorism, like you taught me.  I want to make our enemies regret ever hurting us.  I want to make the world a safe place for everyone, without the threat of BOW’s tearing apart their lives.  I want all of that.  But I need _you_.  I couldn’t find you by myself.  I needed our agency’s resources to find you, which should not have been as hard to procure as they were, but, with the way our last mission went, there were some higher ups who wanted to declare you MIA – or dead.  I needed a reason, and this came up.  It worked and I was able to convince the committee to find you and recruit you for this mission as our team leader.”

“Call the B.S.A.A. back,” Chris hissed.  “Tell them I’m not fit for this mission.  Don’t go through with this.” 

“You would be discharged,” Piers growled back.

“To _fucking Hell_ with being discharged, Piers!” Chris roared.  “You can’t put me in charge of anyone’s life.  I shouldn’t even be in control of _my_ life right now.”

Piers looked from one eye to the other.  “You really don’t remember anything, do you?” He murmured.

“I wish I did, just so I could figure out why I’m engaged to a self-centered, sociopathic _asshole_!”

He paused, thinking that, maybe, he had gone too far and had hurt Piers’ feelings or something.  Piers didn’t look upset, though.  He just looked thoughtful. 

“Chris,” he said, in a voice that was suddenly quiet and commanding.  “Put me in control of your life right now.  We’ll get through this.  When this is all over, we’ll go back to the B.S.A.A. and get you counseling.  We’ll go to therapy together if we have to.  We’ll take leave.  Vacation.  Whatever it takes.  Because, if we leave now, the B.S.A.A. won’t take us back.  You don’t remember this, but you _built_ the B.S.A.A.  Their mission is our mission.  We live and breathe to eradicate bioterrorism.”  Piers stood up, suddenly towering over Chris.  Chris knew that he could stand up too – dwarf Piers and ask him how _he_ fucking liked it – but Piers put a hand on the back of his head and drew his face into Piers’ stomach.  The tension leaked from Chris’s shoulders and he breathed in deep.  Piers didn’t exactly smell like roses – travel and military rations meant that he smelled somewhat sour.  There was a scent underneath that, though, familiar and safe.  Chris nuzzled into Piers’ stomach, confused and needy. 

“You are the team leader,” Piers said.  Before Chris could argue, Piers added, “And I will be _your_ leader.”

“That’s a lot of responsibility,” Chris muttered.

Piers heaved a sigh.  “Yeah, I know.  If it was the whole team, I might hesitate – but I’ve handled you before.  I know you, Chris.  You just don’t remember it, yet.”

Chris had thought that, maybe, more would happen between them.  A kiss?  Sex?  Cuddles?  Nothing. 

Piers held Chris for a few more moments and then he moved away, just in time for the rest of Alpha Team to squeeze into the apartment like a pack of sardines to discuss dinner and the security of the train.  Piers didn’t even bring it up again after that.

Maybe that was why everything went to shit.

When Piers shoved Chris into the pod, Chris’s first thought was that Piers was a fucking horrible leader, and only marginally better than Chris himself.  A catastrophe all the way around.

“No, don’t do this!”  Chris yelled, pounding on the door, the small glass window, on the walls.  Why was there no way out from inside the pod?  Who designed these things?  Shit, this was bad. 

“Piers…”  He paused, so confused as to what to do to get Piers inside with him.  He thought back to the ring hanging around Piers neck, the one Piers seemed to be holding onto through his shirt with the one hand he had left.  The mutated mass of his other arm pulsed strangely. 

“Piers, please,” he begged.  “We can’t get married if you’re dead.” 

This gave Piers pause.  In the end, though, he shook his head and the pod shot out into open water.

Well.

It looked like Chris wasn’t getting married.

~::~  
Chris got counseling.

Paid leave.

He went to AA meetings and talked on the phone to his sister at least twice a week.

There was no alcohol in his apartment. 

He fucking hated his life.

The longer he lived, the more he remembered.  He remembered his friends, his sister, the B.S.A.A., the original alpha team, and _Piers Piers Piers Piers –_

He remembered the man he had fallen in love with, who had been so dead serious in training, so impressive in target practice, and so arousing to watch in the gym.  Chris remembered how he had felt like a dirty old pervert when he first realized he liked Piers as more than just a comrade.  He remembered how Piers had made the first move, kissing Chris around the punching bag between them.  He remembered cuddling with Piers, watching Disney and Dreamworks movies on the television because they had both seen enough horrors in their lives and they nitpicked action movies apart to the point of it being aggravating.  He remembered waking up in the morning to find that he was the little spoon – or big spoon, but it happened slightly less often, which he remembered he had found hilarious in the distant past – and that his boyfriend had drooled on his neck.  He remembered, remembered, _remembered so much_.

And he remembered Piers shooting his pod into open water.  He remembered Piers standing in the destroyed compound.  He remembered Piers’ terrible and mesmerizing mutations.  He remembered, remembered, _remembered_ Piers. 

He remembered calling Piers a fucking prick for dragging a man with obvious and overwhelming PTSD and a dependency on alcohol into armed conflict.  Piers had gotten him back, but it had cost lives.  It had cost Piers’ life. 

Chris hated himself so fucking much.

He didn’t talk about it in counseling, but he felt that he might someday.  So far, he and his counselor had had intense staring contests to see who would break and talk first.  Seven weeks in and his counselor had coughed once, but otherwise remained stubbornly silent.  Chris was actually okay with that.  Probably the reason why he had this counselor and not one of the others was because Chris didn’t want to be talked to about how he should feel and how it was okay that he felt the way he did.  He didn’t want someone to ask how he felt about this or that, or how he would feel in the future.

Yeah, he liked his counselor and his blank, ready-to-listen-but-not-here-to-judge expression.

But, damn, if he couldn’t talk to his counselor, then who could he talk to?  He wasn’t telling Claire about the gun in his bedside drawer.  He wasn’t telling her about the unending thirst for something stronger than an iced tea.  He wasn’t telling her about how he had just remembered that Piers favorite color was actually lilac purple and he had cried for thirty minutes in the shower. 

He was a mess.

Month by month, he slowly became a more organized mess, though.  He sometimes talked to his counselor about his self-loathing, but he mostly talked about daily chores he had to do and errands he had to run, distractions from his real issues.  His counselor didn’t call him out on the diversions, but they both knew them for what they were.

Rarely, he talked about Piers. 

~::~

Eight months after he lost Piers, there was a knock on his door.  Chris was humming to himself, Disney’s _Tarzan_ (1999) playing on the television.  He was borderline happy, chopping up vegetables and mushrooms for a beef stew he was planning on having for Claire’s visit later.

It was too early to be her, though, he guessed as he went to answer it.  Jill?  Maybe.  Shelley?  Possible, the girl had come by once or twice to talk to him.  Leon?  More likely, as the guy was gearing up (finally) to ask Claire out and was taking the smart approach by making sure Chris didn’t kill him first.  Jake?  Hopefully not, but the dick bag had been dropping by probably more frequently than everyone else for reasons unknown to Chris.  If he was lucky, it was his next door neighbor asking him to watch his dog for the weekend again.

Chris thought about getting his own dog as he opened the door.  He could at least peruse an animal shelter or two.  Talks with his counselor had made him realize that he was isolating himself.  People were not always fun company, but dogs were always welcome, especially when he was having a panic attack.  Dogs knew what to do.

Honest creatures, them, even when Dover, his neighbor’s dog, snatched food off his plate and then threw it up later on his carpet.

Honest assholes, but, whatever.

All thoughts came to a stuttering, confused halt as he took in his – this… 

Chris had no idea, so he just stared.

Piers stared back at him with one eye, the other a blind, milky white.  There were scars running up and down the right side of his face and neck, disappearing into the lapel of his jacket.  His right arm was gone. 

It felt like an eternity before Chris could even breathe.  “…  What?  But, _Piers_?”

“I didn’t get it,” his – dead?  Lost?  _Abandoned_? – past lover said into the space between them.  “You called me out on dragging you back into a war you couldn’t even remember and I made it sound like I was doing us both a favor, but I wasn’t.  I said I would take care of you, but I did it all wrong.  I blamed you for every life we lost, but you had warned me.  I was selfish and naïve and a fucking jackass.  You needed help, but I just led you into harm’s way.”

Chris’s head was spinning – too much to take in.  What was going on?  Was he hallucinating?  Was he dreaming?  Was this a trap?  His hand convulsed around the door handle, mouth opening and closing, trying to think – what was he supposed to do?  _Damn it, what was he supposed to do?_

“It wasn’t your fault,” was the first thing he croaked.  His other hand reached out, almost against his will, and stopped just short of touching the raised, glossy scars on Piers’ face.  So familiar and so different, agonizing and achingly sweet to look at.  “It was my fault.”  He had accepted this. 

But Piers shook his head, looking severe.  “It wasn’t.  You shouldn’t have been in that situation at all.  _I_ wanted things and I didn’t care enough about what you needed.”

“Where…  Where is this coming from?  How…  How are you even _here_?”  Chris managed to tear his gaze away long enough to look up and down the hall.  He hesitated, but wrapped his hand around Piers’ upper arm and dragged him into his apartment.  The door shut securely behind them and Chris pressed himself against him.  The apartment suddenly felt very, very small.

Why did he do that? 

“You’re dead,” Chris said.  Should be a fact, right?

Piers shot back, “Only on the inside.”  He gave a self-deprecating smile that did weird things to his scars, not touching the bitter light of his one eye.  The smile disappeared very quickly.  “I… crawled out of the ocean…  A few months ago, I think.”  His eyebrows drew together, confused himself.  “Time wasn’t important, I wasn’t keeping track.  I didn’t think I had anything to keep track of.  I…  It’s ironic, but I didn’t remember anything.  I was somewhere in China, just wandering around homeless with a disfigured arm and one eye.  I got weird looks for the arm, but the dirtier I got, the less people saw me.  I lived out of trash cans and wore clothes that I stole off laundry lines.  It should have been a terrible way to exist, but I just remember thinking, day to day, looking for a new place to sleep, that it was simple.  Could say it was peaceful, if I could have gotten clean water and fresh food more often.  I don’t know how long I was there.”

Piers, whose eyes had drifted to the side, chasing after memories, snapped back to him.  “I thought you chose to forget.  If you had, then I must have too.”

“You… just crawled out of the water?”

“Keep up, Redfield, I just told you about how homeless I was.  In China.”

“You were dead until two minutes ago, excuse the fuck out of me if I’m having a little trouble keeping up!” Chris snapped.  And then he felt like an asshole for it.  “Shit, I’m sorry, just…”  He picked at Piers’ sleeve with two fingers before rubbing the material.  It was real.  Piers was real?  Piers had crawled out of the ocean.  Piers looked… fine?

Piers didn’t look like a homeless man in China?

“How’d you get here?” He asked.

Piers was fixated on where Chris was touching him.  “There was an outbreak in one of the villages.  Can’t remember the name.  The B.S.A.A. came in, but I had…  I had already taken care of it.”  Something electric ran up Chris’s hand through his entire body.  He gasped as his heart missed a beat. 

“I look human,” Piers said, “but I’m not.  I’m different now.  There’s something of the C-Virus inside of me.  Even after the arm was amputated, it’s not gone.”  He curled his real hand toward his chest and sneered.  “It’s _alive_.  I can feel it, in my chest, I can _hear_ it, trying to get out, but I _can_ control it.”  He stepped into Chris’s space.  “The B.S.A.A. took me in for observation.  They didn’t kill me because I had only attacked the B.O.W.’s and left the civilians alone.  I started remembering everything a few weeks ago.  When I remembered you and saw that you never came to see me, I was pissed.”

“I didn’t know,” Chris said.  Piers was closer now, almost chest to chest with him.  “Piers, you have to believe me, I still don’t know if I believe you’re alive.”

It seemed too surreal.  Piers was alive, was in control of his mutation, and was here in his apartment?  Good things like that didn’t happen to Chris.  The only good thing he had left in the world was his sister, and God knew that he might lose her too. 

“I figured that out eventually,” Piers told him.  “I’m considered a liability, but I managed to slip my detail long enough to come find you.”  His hand came up and held Chris’s jaw.  “I don’t know if you remember everything about us.  I don’t know if you lo- care about me anymore.  I don’t know if you hate me or not for what I put you through, but, Chris…  I _understand now_.  At least, I understand better than I did.  I have panic attacks whenever someone comes at me with a needle.  I wake up _screaming_ every night.  I’ve been talking to a therapist through a bulletproof two-way mirror for my PTSD.  I’m a fucking mess right now.  If someone did to me what I had done to you, if someone told me that I had to go fight something I only half-remember that had killed everyone I cared for, I would…  I would…”  Piers looked away, ashamed.  “I hate myself because I hate what I did to you.”

“Look what I did to you,” Chris said.  He traced a scar with a light fingertip.  Piers leaned toward the slight touch, eyes at half-mast.  “Look what I did to our team.  That wasn’t you, Piers.  That was me.  You can’t blame yourself for the orders I made.”

“I can, because you weren’t in the place of mind to make them.  You told me that.” 

“I don’t blame you, Piers,” Chris said.  His broad shoulders shuddered.  “And I remember us.  I remember everything.  I remember…  I remember how fucking much I love you, and I am so sorry for what I did.  _Shit_ , Piers, you’re _alive_ – ” which was about the moment Chris lost his cool and broke down sobbing.

Piers grabbed him up in his one arm and pulled him close, pressing kisses into his hair, on his forehead, by his ear, as he pushed Chris’s face into his neck.  “I’ve got you, Captain,” Piers whispered.  He was still shorter, slimmer, lither than Chris, but he was strong enough to hold him up as his knees buckled.  “I will never let you down again, I’ll listen, I won’t ever push you into something you can’t do again, just…”  Piers’ voice choked.  “Just let me come home, I miss you so damn much…”

And then they were holding each other up, a fucking mess with four legs and three arms and snotty, wet faces like they were little boys who had lost their way in the woods.

Chris was never going to tell Claire about this.  She hadn’t seen him cry since he had found out that their parents were dead, and he’d pushed himself then to only let a few tears break free before shouldering the pain to focus on Claire.  The dam of decades without crying broke and he was soaking Piers’ shoulder, but Piers was wheezing too. 

This was as fucking un-romantic as it got, but Chris thought that he might be falling in love again.

Piers didn’t blame Chris for Langshiang.  Or for what happened at the Neo-Umbrella base.  It fucking sucked that Piers blamed himself, but Chris somehow felt lighter.  Chris still blamed himself, but the blame was a little easier to carry, knowing that Piers didn’t blame him too. 

“Chris, please,” Piers breathed against his ear, pressing a kiss there.  “Let me come home.”

“You’ll be lucky if I ever let you _leave_ ,” Chris croaked in a thick voice.  One hand came around the back of Piers’ neck and held him there as Chris tilted his chin up to steal the other man’s mouth with his. 

Piers’ lips were chapped, there was the salty moisture of grief, and Chris may or may not have forgotten how to actually kiss in the moment.  It was terrible and wonderful. 

Chris pulled Piers closer.  Another little static shock ran through his body, making his breath hitch, but he didn’t dare let go.

“I’m sorry,” Piers was saying into his mouth, against his cheeks, to his chin, as he fluttered kisses over Chris’s closed eyes.  “I’m so fucking sorry, I’m sorry, I love you.  I never stopped, I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” was all Chris said back.  “I forgive you.  I love you too, I forgive you, stay…”

Piers’ shirt rucked half way up the man’s torso and Chris’s hands splayed against his bare, warm sides while Piers’ one hand was shoved down the back of his pants to hold the swell of his ass was not how Chris wanted visitors to see the reunion between himself and his long lost, believed-to-be-deceased boyfriend.  Unfortunately, they weren’t given a choice as Chris’s door was suddenly kicked inward, sending Chris – still leaning against it – and Piers – who was pushing into Chris – flying toward the floor.

“B.S.A.A.!” Someone roared from the other side.  Another blow of the battering ram sent Chris’s doors off its hinges, allowing a small swarm of operatives in.  Five rifles were instantly trained on them.

Chris thought it was good that he had fallen on top of Piers and that the other man was somewhat smaller than him, otherwise the team might have shot already. 

“Captain, are you…  Hurt…?”  The team leader stuttered to a confused halt.  There was a stunted silence.

Chris cleared his throat slowly, deliberately, and sent Piers a side-eyed glare until his boyfriend took his hand out of his pants. 

“I’m doing great,” Chris said honestly.  “At least, I was.  Who’s fixing my door?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> CHRIS WAS IN NO CONDITION TO LEAD A TEAM OF ANYTHING AFTER HIS TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES AND THE SPIRALING DEPRESSION/DENIAL THAT FOLLOWED.


End file.
